


Modest & Bold

by ShrimpZilla



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 06:24:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5655868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShrimpZilla/pseuds/ShrimpZilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Trevelyan backstory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Modest & Bold

**9:28**

 

She dips her hand in the baby’s bathwater and swirls it. She looks up when she hears Kay’s happy squeal as Mother places a kiss on his stomach. She smiles. Mother lowers Kay but stops, her forehead creased and her eyes wide. “What have you done…” Mother whispers. She looks into the tub. The water is frozen solid.  
  
It’s only a few days later that they have her packed up and ready to go. The Templars stand patiently behind her as the family bids their goodbyes. She is doing her best not to cry. She is a Trevelyan, after all. Noble ladies don’t cry where people can see them. She looks at Father and Mother, Kay in her arms, but their faces are blank. It makes her tremble. Percy is standing with his hands fisted, tears and snot dribbling down his face. Lancel places a comforting hand on Percy’s shoulder. He isn’t crying but she can see the tightness in his jaw from the effort to keep his face straight. Percy pulls away from their eldest brother’s touch and throws his arms around her. His hands are still fisted and she can feel them on her back.  
  
She cries into her brother’s embrace. Not nearly as loud and sloppily as he is but the tears burn her eyes and make her dizzy. Lancel puts an arm around each of them and holds them for a moment. Lancel never does things like that and she wonders if he feels embarrassed. She can hear her Father whisper that they need to finish up. She grips Percy tighter. Lancel bends and kisses the top of her head. She can’t remember the last time Lancel paid her any attention at all. Her mind spins. He whispers, “Be brave.”  
  
One of the Templars offers her a hand after the goodbyes are done and the gates have closed and it’s just her and them and the road to the Circle Tower. She shakes her head and wipes at her face with the sleeve of her dress. She can be brave. She is a mage, but she’s still a Trevelyan. She can be brave.  
  
-

“The Chantry says—“  
  
“Fuck the Chantry,” she spits though she hasn’t been involved in the conversation up until this point. The others look over at her, shocked and disturbed. Some seem amused, but that isn’t why she said it. “They’re the ones that put us here.” She gestures to the crowded room that they all share. The boy that had been speaking glares at her. She glares back. She’s been at the Tower for a few months now. It’s finally sunk in that her mother might be able to visit her but she isn’t going to get her out. She doesn't want to get her out.

This is her home now. It makes her angry to think.  
  
“The Tower is a good place,” the boy argues. “You’re just angry cause of how bad at magic you are.” She fumes and self-consciously touches the eyebrow she had sizzled a part of off. She throws herself down on her bed and curls her knees to her chest. The boy and his friends go back to talking. She hates it here. She misses Percy and Lancel and baby Kay. Mother never brings them to visit. She says it would upset them too much. She closes her eyes when she feels tears.  
  
“Don’t let Ollie bother you.” She opens her eyes to a young elven girl standing over her bed. She sits up and the elven girl lowers herself onto the edge. “He thinks he’s the best apprentice in the Tower.” The girl rolls her eyes and smiles.  
  
“He’s right though,” she says sulkily, “I’m the worst.”  
  
“Well, the worst. I’m Kenna. Nice to meet you.” They both laugh.  
  
“I’m…” She hesitates for a moment, biting her lip. “Trevelyan. You can call me Trevelyan.”

-

“You were born here?” Trevelyan asks Kenna over breakfast. The other girl chews thoughtfully and swipes a strand of long, black hair behind her tapered ear.  
  
“Not here here. I was born in a Circle, I think.” Trevelyan raises an eyebrow. “I was raised in a Chantry orphanage until I showed my magic,” Kenna explains. Trevelyan lifts a spoonful of porridge to her lips. “I always just assumed by parents were mages.” She swallows the bland cereal down and thinks it over. Mages weren’t allowed to keep their children if they had them within the Circle. Kenna never met her parents. It makes Trevelyan feel sad in a guilty sort of way for the life she left and for how she’s been acting. Maybe the Circle isn’t so bad, really. Just in comparison to her home it is.  
  
“They don’t have to be mages,” she says. “Could be your dad was a mage and your mom was a Templar.” The two girls start giggling. Trevelyan had always entertained the idea of being a Templar. Percy was supposed to be promised to the Chantry since he was the second son. She wanted to go so they could be together. But now she’s a mage which is the exact opposite of being a Templar. She dreams of Percy showing up in the halls in shining armor, laughing and joking and sneaking her treats.  
  
“My parents were so romantic!” Trevelyan knows that it is more likely that her friend’s parents were two mages. Father always said that there weren’t many elves in the Templar Order. Kenna’s ears are long and tapered so both her parents had to be elvish. But the joke is funny and the laughing helps things to not seem so bad. She feels lucky to have Kenna as her friend. “Your parents are nobles, right? That’s romantic too.” Trevelyan scrunches up her nose at the idea that her parents are anything other than stuffy parents who've thrown her away like day old bread. “I used to dream that I was secretly noble,” her friend confesses.

Trevelyan thinks: you can’t be noble. But she doesn’t say it. That would be rude.  
  
“Maybe you are.” She leans in as if she is about to tell a secret. “Maybe you’re my secret half-sister!” They squeal delighted laughter and call each other sister for the rest of the day. Even when they stop Trevelyan thinks: maybe, not for real but maybe…

 

**9:32**

  
  
“You simply must write him a letter talking sense to him. You know how your brother can be. I don’t know where he gets this wild streak.” Trevelyan focuses her attention on a nail she’s bitten too close. It hurts when she presses on it. So she presses on it. It’s better than listening to her mother. The monthly visits feel less like a privilege to her and more like a punishment. Plenty of the apprentices hold it against her that just because her family is wealthy and notable that she is still allowed contact with them. Trevelyan wants to argue that it’s only her mother she sees but it isn’t worth bringing up. It’s still more than most of them.  
  
“I’m not writing him,” she says when she gets an opening to. Her mother looks at her in shock. Trevelyan straightens her shoulders against the scrutiny. “It’s his choice. It isn’t my place to tell him what he should do with his life.” Her mother points a finger at her and shakes her head.  
  
“It most certainly is your place when you, my dear, are the reason behind his never before heard disdain for the notion. Percy has known since he was old enough to understand such things that Lancel would be the heir and that he would be trained as a Templar.”

Trevelyan looks to the side, hoping her boredom comes across. Her mother slams a hand down on the table between them. Despite herself Trevelyan jumps. She wonders how her mother can be so bold and unafraid around her while still saying that her magic is a danger to everyone. If she was truly dangerous wouldn’t her mother be more careful not to upset her?

I could set her on fire, Trevelyan thinks bitterly but knows she never truly could. She isn't good enough and she loves her mother and she's still scared from the news of what happened in Ferelden.

“How am I the reason?” She’s just being difficult now. Her mother has already explained that Percy’s reason for refusing entry into the Templar Order was because she was here in the Circle. Kenna told her that they probably wouldn’t send Percy to the Ostwick Circle if she was here. One of them would have to be moved. Now she was filled with pride that her brother still cared enough about her to refuse to willingly become one of her jailors, even if he had to be in a different jail.  
  
“This attitude does not become a young lady.”  
  
“I’m not a young lady. I’m just a mage,” she snaps.  
  
“If you do not—“ She stands up, pushing her chair back hard enough that it topples over behind her. Her mother looks at her in the most unamused way.  
  
“You can’t do anything to me," Trevelyan stresses. "You can’t punish me any more than you already have. I’m not part of the family so long as I’m here!” She turns her back and stomps away from her mother. She can hear the agitated and shocked noises behind her. She can imagine the look on her mother’s face. She doesn’t care.  
  
She’s not a Trevelyan anymore.  
  
She’s just Trevelyan.  
  
-

  
A few weeks later and she’s still all twisted up about her mother. She feels guilty but angry, homesick but vindicated, isolated but suffocated. Her concentration is trash and her spells suffer for it. The enchanter running lessons makes her stay after all the other apprentices have left the room so that she can practice summoning fire. She does it but in her carelessness winds up with a burn on her hand. She gets sent to a healer. Walking down the hall, clutching her burned hand awkwardly to her chest, she lets her mind wander. She wonders if Lancel and Helaine will invite her to the wedding even though she won’t be able to go. She wonders what Percy will do if not join the Templars. She wonders what Kay will be like, the baby brother she’ll never get to know.   
  
The door in front of her swings open, slamming her in the face, and sending her falling to the ground. She grips her nose as stars explode in front of her eyes, tears streaming unbidden down her cheeks. “Oh shit!” A voice hisses. She feels hands grabbing her shoulders and she shrugs them away. Blood pours down her face and hands. “I’m sorry! I was trying to make a dramatic exit. I didn’t know anyone was out here.” Trevelyan squints through the tears and pain to see who’s kneeling beside her. It’s a man. She thinks she recognizes him from around the Circle but he’s older and Harrowed. He places his hand over her gushing nose and she feels warmth spread through the pain. “Don’t worry. I’ll fix it. I’m Pate, by the way,” he says it as if they’re not on the floor with blood everywhere. “Someone busts your nose like this you should know their name.”  
  
“Trevelyan,” she manages. Pate pulls his hand away and touches her chin, tilting her head from side to side and inspecting the damage through the drying blood.   
  
“Right as rain.” He taps her nose as if to underscore his point. It still hurts a little and she winces. “You should wash up. No good to walk around the Tower with blood on you. People get the wrong idea.” He stands and brushes dirt off his robes. He extends his hand to help her up, smiling at her while he does it. Trevelyan is grateful for the blood because she feels her cheeks turning hot. His nose is too big for his face and he shows too many teeth when he grins at her, but Trevelyan thinks there’s something handsome about him anyway. She holds out her hand. He stops just short of grabbing it, his fingers closing around her wrist instead so he can turn the palm. “This doesn’t seem like my work.” He indicates her burn.  
  
“That’s why I was here. I needed my hand healed,” she explains in a halting voice. She sees his hand begin to glow as he focuses the energy on her injury. Her stomach feels wobbly. He pulls her to her feet. “Thank you.” He waves her gratitude away.   
  
“See you around, Trevelyan. It’s a small Circle, after all.”

 

**9:33**

  
  
Trevelyan leans her head back against the wall and lets the silence wash over her. Sometimes it gets to be too much. Always surrounded, always blocked in, always watched. She needs moments to herself. She imagines that they all must, but maybe they hide it better than she does. Kenna has never known anything but the Circle and Ollie sees it as a gift to the mages. She doesn’t really know what she thinks about it. Some days she hates it and curses the life of a noble young woman that she had to leave behind. She could be going to balls and trying out suitors while wearing expensive dresses! Instead she goes to classes and tries to ignore the apprentices having secret relationships while wearing ugly robes.

Some days it doesn’t seem so bad though. She has friends... She is a good mage...   
  
“You aren’t supposed to be out of your room.” She starts at the sound of a voice in a helmet, opens her eyes and sees the Templar just a bit down the hall. She swallows and feels along the wall behind her for the door knob. If he wants to he’ll follow her into her room but she hopes that going back inside will be enough. “I saw you come out before, but I didn’t want to say anything in case you were meeting someone.” She just looks at him, trying to keep her face as neutral as possible. “You know,” he shrugs and the noise is startling in the silent hallway, “meeting someone.” He pauses. “You can’t tell because of the helmet but I was waggling my eyebrows when I said it so you’d get what I meant.”  
  
“I’m not meeting anyone,” she says with more force than she means. She watches as the Templar shifts almost awkwardly from foot to foot.   
  
“I only thought you might be because I’ve caught some of the other mages already.” His voice suddenly grows eager. “I haven’t even been here that long and I’ve already caught three couples.” He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. He’s putting a lot of effort into making sure he doesn’t rest his hand on his sword. She supposes she appreciates that. But she doesn’t know what to make of a Templar talking to her. The Templars never talk to the mages.   
  
“What did you do?” She lets her hand fall away from the door handle. The Templar seems to relax a little at her question. He takes a few tentative steps closer.   
  
“The first time I just stood there like a complete idiot. No one really warned me I might stumble upon anything like that. The second time,” the more he speaks the closer he gets and the closer he gets the more at ease he seems, “I ran away, also like a complete idiot. Maker, the things they were doing. I didn’t know people did that to each other!” Trevelyan feels herself blush, her overactive imagination filling her mind with images she doesn’t need right now. “The third time,” he shakes his head, “they asked me to join! I was flattered at first but then I started thinking. They didn’t even know what I looked like.” He sounds mock offended through the hollowness that the helmet lends his voice. Despite herself Trevelyan laughs a little. “So… if you aren’t meeting someone then what’re you doing? It’s the middle of the night. Or at least I think it’s the middle of the night. I hope it’s the middle of the night. Otherwise I’ve been on duty for a long time.” She wonders if he’s talking so much because he’s nervous. It sounds that way but she didn’t think that Templars got nervous. He sounds like he’s new. She bites her lip and pushes herself off the wall so that they’re both standing in the middle of the hall.  
  
“I couldn’t sleep,” she explains slowly.   
  
“That’s convenient because I’m not allowed to sleep.” She raises an eyebrow at him. “We could keep each other company. I have to stand here all night anyway and I’d much rather be talking to someone than just, you know, standing.” He holds up his hands in a gesture she reads as anxious, trying to put her at ease. “Plus I’m very boring. Talk to me for a little while and you’ll be asleep on your feet.”  She laughs again and he tilts his head a little when she does as if he’s really listening to the sound. “I’m Wallis.” He holds out a gauntleted hand. She hesitates, glances over her shoulder at the door the apprentice quarters, and bites her lip. What did she have to lose? What harm could it do? She turns back and sets her shoulders straight, takes the offered hand weakly in her own.   
  
“Trevelyan.”  


**9:34**

  
  
She yawns and looks down at the book on her lap. Lyla and Kenna are chatting animatedly about things that are most definitely not their homework. Trevelyan doesn’t feel as bad zoning out then. Besides, they aren’t saying anything she is interested in hearing. They are being cute. It makes her happy to see Kenna so happy. But she also feels jealous and uncomfortable as the constant third wheel. Lyla doesn’t seem to mind her presence and Kenna actively encourages it. If she doesn’t hang out with them she supposes she would have to suck it up and hang out with Ollie and his group. Pate will talk to her if he has time on his hands. And Wallis… Well, Wallis is a whole different issue.   
  
Trevelyan watches as Lyla’s smile falters and her body stills when a Templar walks by them in the library. Kenna doesn’t seem to notice. Lyla leans forward over the table, an arm around Kenna to bring her into the secretive conversation. Trevelyan hefts the book off of her lap so that she can lean more effectively.

“Do you guys know Sander?” Lyla is older than them. She passed her Harrowing three years ago, around the same time as Pate. Kenna says that Lyla told her that she overheard someone saying that it was a remarkable Harrowing. Trevelyan doesn’t really know what that means but it makes Lyla feel good so she goes along with it.   
  
“Is he the one with the gap in his teeth?” Kenna asks. Trevelyan shakes her head.  
  
“No, he’s the one with the birthmark on his eyelid.”  
  
“I thought that was Samuel.” Lyla makes a frustrated noise in her throat. She pulls a piece of paper out of her robe’s pocket and lays it flat on the table so that they can see it. “Are you tired of Templars—“ Kenna begins to read out loud. Lyla places a hand over her mouth.   
  
“Where’d you get this?” Trevelyan asks, genuinely curious. She assumes that Sander made it. The scratchy handwriting provides enough evidence that it wasn’t anyone important who had crafted the letter. It was inviting mages of the Circle into a discussion about the necessity of Templars. She assumes that the point is going to be that there is no necessity to them.   
  
“Sander gave it to me. He wants to have a meeting so we can discuss the state of the Circle,” Lyla answers eagerly. Kenna pulls the other girl’s hand off her mouth. She looks confused.  
  
“But the Circle is fine,” she argues. Trevelyan wishes she could excuse herself without being obvious. She doesn’t want to hear Lyla and Kenna argue about the Circle again. Lyla hates the Circle more than anyone Trevelyan knows. It was how they started talking. She had heard that Trevelyan didn’t mind be vocal about her dislike for the Chantry and had assumed that she had found an ally. Trevelyan had brought her to meet Kenna despite their differing opinions and one thing had led to another on that front.   
  
“How can you think that?”   
  
“Because it’s the truth!”   
  
Trevelyan leans away from the two of them and pretends to go back to studying. She hopes neither of them try to drag her into it. Her opinions are moderate and so she’s usually the wildcard that places the deciding vote on whatever the two are debating. Lyla isn’t as good of a loser as Kenna though. From what she’s overhearing she knows that she’s on Kenna’s side. Lyla always confuses the force that put them here with the force that keeps them here. Trevelyan blames the Chantry, not the Templars. They’re just following orders. Lyla thinks they’re all bad. Sadists, she calls them. Kenna thinks they keep the mages safe. Trevelyan just thinks that they’re people like the rest of them.

Lyla hates that argument. 

“I have to go,” Lyla says suddenly. “Good luck with your assignment.” She leaves and Kenna sighs. Trevelyan lowers the book again.   
  
“I love her but she’s just so headstrong,” the elf says. Trevelyan lifts an eyebrow.  
  
“You love her?” Kenna blushes and smiles weakly at her. Trevelyan smiles back but she feels a tremor of concern in her guts. That isn’t something that ever seems to go well in the Circle.  
  
-  
  
It takes a lot of convincing and a little guilt and for Kenna and Lyla to have one drag out, knock down fight for Trevelyan to agree to go to one of Sander’s secret meetings. Lyla reassures her that there are all kinds of opinions welcome. Trevelyan figures that even if there aren’t it might be helpful for everyone to hear something from the middle of the road. After a year of meetings the group must just be repeating themselves and patting each other on the back.   
  
The first thing Trevelyan notices is that the meeting isn’t too much of a secret. They’re just set up at a table in the library. Though the absurdity is not lost on her she feels better knowing they aren’t actually sneaking around. The second thing she notices is that there aren’t that many people. Lyla doesn’t go to assure her that it’s just a quiet meeting so she’s forced to assume Sander’s group is always this small. Only five people outside of her and Lyla.

Sander gets up and shakes both of their hands. Trevelyan makes a note that he is neither the person she thought nor the one Kenna thought.   
  
“Always good to have a new face around the table.” Trevelyan smiles awkwardly.  
  
“Just checking things out,” she answers as noncommittally as possible. They take seats and the conversation starts up. Trevelyan stays quiet. Everyone seems content to talk about the things they hate about Templars or the things that Templars have done to them to make them miserable. Some of the stories are poignant. Sander tells one about getting beaten as an apprentice for getting lost. Another young man, Nichol, explains that they made his brother Tranquil before transferring him out of Kirkwall. Even Lyla goes, sharing a story of someone she knew who was killed for failing their Harrowing.

Eventually the conversation stops on her and Trevelyan balks. She stays quiet. She has nothing even close to what the others are recounting. Suddenly the way she feels about the Circle seems irrelevant. Her life is easy and always has been. She sympathizes with the Templars because her brother should have been one but some of these people have lost their brothers to the Templars. Some never knew their brothers at all.   
  
“I don’t think…” She trails.   
  
“You live in a Tower filled with Templars and Templars do bad things. I’m sure you’ve seen something and maybe didn’t even realize you were witnessing something terrible,” Sander insists. Trevelyan frowns.  
  
“Bad people do bad things. Templars are just people. There are good ones.” She thinks of the one that offered to hold her hand when she was being taken away. She thinks of Wallis who has become one of her closest friends.   
  
“You’re naïve,” Nichol laughs harshly.   
  
“You’re bitter,” she responds snappily and without much thought. The other mage stands, opens his mouth to yell something at her but never gets the chance. The Templars come and Trevelyan gets her taste of the bad sort of Templar.

-

Things could have been much worse.

She repeats Knight-Captain Devon's words so often she nearly forgets they aren't her own. Things could have been worse. They could have been transferred to a different Circle or put in solitary or made Tranquil. The Templars had hardly beat them at all, really. Except for Sander who was beaten once when they came upon the meeting and once again later as punishment for his seditious opinions.

Trevelyan's eyes is black and swollen purple and wet. One of her back teeth feels a little loose if she presses too hard with her tongue. Her ribs hurt most of all, not broken but bruised and painful like nothing she's ever felt. Walking is a labor and she can hardly lift her arms to make proper work of glyphs.

But things could have been much worse.

"Trevelyan," Pate exclaims, their paths crossing in the hall. She ducks her head so that he doesn't have to look at her bruises. It's embarrassing. She looks horrible. He puts his hand on her elbow, holding delicately with only two fingers as if the slightest touch will hurt her. "What did they do to you?"

"It could have been worse," she mumbles. Pate tugs her off to the side, out of the traffic on mages and Templars. They settle next to an unflattering statue of Andraste.

"I can't heal your face," he explains in a whisper as he presses her up against the wall. Chest to chest, chin to shoulder, her heart is beating double and she knows he must feel it. One of his hands rests lightly on her hip, the other hovers beneath her breasts. Over her ribs. "I can heal some of it though, if you want."

"You'll get in trouble," she whispers too. She thinks this might be a silly dream. She's had a crush on Pate for years now.

"I don't care." The timbre of his voice gives her chills and steals her breath so that all she can do is nod dumbly. "If they just think we're fooling around they won't do anything more than split us up, really." She thinks of the story Wallis told about being asked to join and shifts nervously at the warmth building in her.

Pate's hands settle on her ribcage lightly. He angles himself in front of her further, body closer. The magic is like warm tickling up and down her bones. She presses her hands to his chest and trembles into the sensation that shouldn't be so powerful but is leaving her knees weak. She tilts her head to look into his eyes, dark and tense with compassion and care. His magic seems to stutter for a moment and then their lips are connected and his hands are wandering in earnest and it's all Trevelyan can do not to laugh hysterically.

"Oh, come on. It's the middle of the day," an exasperated Templar complains when she comes upon them. They separate quickly, Trevelyan looking at the floor because her face is red and she can't stop grinning. Pate presses his lips to her temple, the Templar gives a warning noise, and then he's gone. Trevelyan looks up in time to see him wink, a skip in his step as he disappears around a corner. "You could do better than that guy," the Templar confides before Trevelyan excuses herself.

Maybe, thinks with a smile that threatens to envelope her, but things could be much worse.

 

**9:35**

 

Wallis leaves her notes in the books he knows she studies from. They're silly, inconsequential, and if someone else ever found them would simply be discarded without a second thought. _How come our arms aren't long enough to scratch all of our back?_ and _I think there was a fly in my porridge this morning. I thought it was a raisin but now I'm not so sure_ and _You wore your hair down today_.

She keeps them in her pockets so she can look at them throughout her days. Little secrets that make her feel like she has some sort of power over her life. She keeps them until she's wasting time with Pate in an empty healer's quarters and he hears the crinkle of her pockets as he hikes up her robes.

"What's that?" He asks, hands quicker than hers and ferreting them out before she can do much more than blush. He reads them, flinging them over his shoulder as he finishes. He grins and laughs. "Got something going on behind my back?" He's only joking because he knows this isn't serious because there isn't anything serious in the Circle. Still she feels terribly guilty.

"They're just notes," she argues. Pate places his hands back on her hips, fingers kneading her skin expertly.

"Those are love notes if I ever saw one. Badly written and woefully awkward but the intent is clear." He hums into her hair as he draws her close. Trevelyan holds tight to him, eager to put this discovery behind them. "I noticed you wore your hair down the other day as well, you know." He tugs on her braid gently. Trevelyan can't tell if there's jealousy or competitiveness behind the good-natured ribbing. Pate is older, more experience, and harder to read.

"If you undo it now you'll have to rebraid it for me later," she says breathily, mouth to his ear. She can feel him shiver excitedly and at least she knows how to read him that well.

"Gladly."

 

**9:36**

 

Pate's head in under her robe. His lips trailing over her thighs in light, airy, maddening kisses. Her back is pressed hard against the stone wall of the miraculously empty hall. She makes a noise in her throat and hears him laugh against her skin.

Time feels slow, as if they have all the moments to spar, as if someone isn't always one step away from walking in on them. Blissfully quiet, blissfully alone it's the first time she's ever felt more than the mad dash to get it going and get it over with. She bites her bottom lip, fights a smile that if Pate ever saw he would never let her hear the end of. She's happy, so strangely, bizarrely, and simply happy.

"Trevelyan?" Wallis' voice cuts to the core of her unadvised relaxation. The fear that lives just to the left of her pleasure doesn't burst and overshadow everything. Pate hasn't even bothered stopping, seemingly more eager now that there are Templar eyes on them. Trevelyan squirms under his ministrations, forces her eyes open so she can look at Wallis.

She's only seen him without a helmet twice. Once because she asked him and he, for some reason, couldn't refuse her. The second because he had sneezed and needed to wipe the inside off. He isn't wearing it now. His dark hair and light eyes, tanned skin and easy smile are almost too much to look at with Pate where he is, doing what he's doing.

"Can I join?" Wallis asks, eyes wide and cheeks hot. Trevelyan gasps but it's half from his words and half because Pate's done something wonderful.  She goes to respond, smile wide and embarrassing but the words die in her throat. She twists away from Pate, stumbles a little but maintains her footing as she steps around him.

"Well, that was rude," the other mage complains with his typical silly tone. He looks over at Wallis and inclines his head towards the seemingly dumbstruck Templar. "Want me to catch him up to speed?" He asks her with a smug little grin. She battles to catch her breath.

"No," she says weakly. Pate's eyebrows shoot up and he struggles off his knees. Wallis takes a step closer to her, hand out and open. She shakes her head at him, at all of it. "I can't believe it." The sword of mercy embossed on Wallis' Templar armor draws her eye and dries her mouth. "This is pathetic."

"Ouch," Pate says. Wallis lowers his eyes sadly.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, "I just thought--"  
  
"Did you really think this was all it would take to possess me?" Trevelyan questions with irritation building where anticipation had been before. "I have more tempting day dreams than this!" Pate and Wallis exchange a sour glance and the hallway wavers. Suddenly they aren't two but one and Trevelyan feels a rush of self-satisfaction at having figured it all out so swiftly. The demon glares at her, floating slightly above the ground, impractical jewelry tinkling with the subtle movement.

"If you give me a chance I can give you everything you want," the desire demon coos. Trevelyan almost pauses to think about it, but she knows better. Images blink behind her eyes of all the things she ever hoped for, ever coveted, ever craved. She closes her eyes and clears her mind with a deep breath. Lightening crackles between her fingertips.

"No."

-

She passes her Harrowing and is given a real room with the barest semblance of privacy. It's a small thing but after so long without small things it means the world to her. She carries her meager possessions in her arms happily.

On the stairs leading from the apprentice quarters to the Harrowed mages rooms a Templar bumps into her. Books and robes go scattering, collected notes fluttering in the air like confetti. She drops quickly and averts her eyes. She only just passed and doesn't want to start trouble. The Templar joins her in picking up her items.

"I'm sorry, I'm such a clutz. I was hurrying. I wanted to see you and congratulate you." The Templar is Wallis and she feels bad for not recognizing him straight away. He takes off his helmet as he rambles and Trevelyan can't fight the warmth that floods her at the sight of his face. She thinks about her demon dream and feels her stomach waver. "Here." He presses an unfamiliar book into her hands. She looks down at the soft fabric covering, the gilt of words that spells out "Gardens of Ostwick". She flips through the pages and smells fresh ink and paper. A pressed flower falls from the center. "Oops," Wallis says and when she looks up at him he's halfway between and grimace and a grin. His cheeks are red. "You were supposed to find that later."

"Kiss me," she says without more than a second of thought. In front of her Wallis balks. They're still on their knees on the stairs, surrounded by the petty notes they've traded through the years. It seems the perfect place to do this thing that they've been dancing around all this time. Wallis leans in, eyes sliding shut, before he tenses and pulls away.

"No," he says with an edge of confusion and mistrust. She sees a kernel of doubt in his pale green eyes. Trevelyan's heart clenches. "That's... that's really against the rules." He stands and swallows loudly. He shoves his helmet on with clumsy hands.

"Wallis," she begins because she knows she crossed a line.

"I-- I have to go." He practically runs, armor clanking. It would be comical if it didn't hurt so much. She gathers her things, holds the book he gave her close to her heart, and goes to her room.

 

**9:37**

 

Trevelyan and Wallis stop their stealthy friendship. She quits sleeping with Pate and is relieved when it doesn't cause a break in their relationship. If a demon used them once against her, she rationalizes, then it's only a matter of time before another tries.

Kenna and Lyla spend more time together, and Trevelyan grows irritated with the older mage's constant confrontational conversations. She waits for Kenna's rare free time, dedicating her own to studying. Pate is impressed with the strides she's making. He thinks she'll be an Enchanter before long. Trevelyan decides she's never wanted anything more.

When news of the terrorism in Kirkwall reaches her she is in her room, leafing through a treatise on arcane weapons even though she knows she doesn't have the skill set for it. Pate bursts through her door and to her surprise Kenna and Lyla are close behind him.

"Have you heard?" He asks in a loud whisper. She shakes her head, scared and excited by the looks on their faces.

"It's happening!" Lyla crows. Trevelyan stands up.

"What are you talking about?"

"An apostate blew up a Chantry," Kenna warbles. There is true fear in her eyes. It grounds Trevelyan more than anything else in the room. Without realizing it Trevelyan finds she's sitting on her bed again. For a moment things feel blank and pointless, then everything returns to focus.

"What?" She manages to say. Pate is the first to sit next to her.

"An apostate in Kirkwall destroyed the local Chantry. The whole city is a battleground."

"The Templars there have been slaughtering mages."

"Because look what a mage did!"  
  
"They were doing it before! This is a wake up call for everyone that the way things are isn't working!"

Trevelyan tunes out the argument, her heart thudding in her chest and her lungs weak. She finds Pate's hand and grasps it. Kirkwall was a bad Circle, everyone knows that, but the idea of something... like this. It's unfathomable.

"They'll probably Annul the Circle," she says, the first thing of value in the conversation from her. Her gaze drifts to Kenna because suddenly she shares her fear. "Do you think it'll effect the rest of us?"

"Probably not."  
  
"Of course it will." Pate and Lyla say simultaneously.

 

**9:38**

 

Trevelyan hums soft and out of tune as she walks down the steps to the lower part of the library. It's filled with bad novels and even worse poetry and it's her and Kenna's favorite place to wile away their time together. But when she gets to the bottom Kenna isn't sitting in their usual spot giggling over ridiculous love poems or scandalous passages in tawdry novels. She's pinned between the table and a Templar, shaking and crying with her hands in front of her face as if that might stop any sort of blow.

The Templar grabs her hair and twists one of her ears and that's all Trevelyan takes the time to watch. She pulls on her magic, letting her mana flow easy and full to her fingertips. The Templar feels the disturbance and shoves Kenna to the side without a thought. Trevelyan can feel the weakening grasp on her magic as the Templar reaches out. She lets loose a wild bolt that knocks the armored figure down, but immediately she feels the punch in the gut sensation of being Silenced. Her world tilts as her whole body feels cold and empty and helpless.

The Templar is up and advancing.  
  
Kenna is screaming.

Trevelyan tries desperately to conjure a repulsion glyph or a shield or anything but it's like trying to hold thread with numb fingers. She stumbles in her efforts again and again, pushes deeper, stumbles more. The Templar rams its shoulder into her chest and suddenly Trevelyan is on her back with spots dancing before her eyes.  
  
She can hear more armored footfalls responding to Kenna's screams.

There is a blade pressed sharp and insistent at her throat. Her eyes fill with tears and in the terror of impending death she faints just like a lady in a storybook.

-

She wakes on and off in a small, damp, dark cell. Sometimes there is food and water, but usually there's nothing. She shivers and the motion hurts. There is a hard, sticky scab just under her jaw and running towards her ear. It takes a little while for her to realize that the Templar didn't kill her and that instead she's been stuck in solitary confinement. Probably while they make a show of going over the details and just kill her later.

Better that than Tranquil.

Time loses meaning for her there in the darkness, waiting and waiting and waiting for the fate she know she can't avoid. She thinks about Kenna and hopes she's all right. She thinks about Pate and misses his soft, healing hands. She thinks about Lyla and considers that maybe she was right. She thinks about Wallis and it makes her sick.

"You've been eating the food I'm leaving!"  
  
"Says who?"  
  
"The Tranquil that cleans the cells told me."

"And you believed it?"  
  
"He's Tranquil. He can't lie."  
  
"Says you."

"Will you... will you just stop? She needs to eat."

"Are you hoping she'll be grateful or something when she gets out? Owe you a little friendliness in a corner?"

"No! I don't-- That's not why-- She didn't do anything wrong. I'm sure the Knight-Commander knows it. It's just-- Bad timing. They'll prove it and let her out and I just don't want a dead mage on my shoulders, okay?"

Trevelyan can't tell if the conversation stops or if she simply falls asleep because the next thing she properly knows it's back to mind-numbing silence.

-

There are hands on her shoulders, too gently lifting her. More hands trying to help her make it to her feet. She mumbles something, opens her eyes, and is nearly blinded by the lamplight that shines from the open door. She blinks away tears that flowing too freely to be just from pain. She staggers, pulling against the feeling of gauntlets on her. They've finally come.

"Get out," a voice barks from the spot closest the light, the place she can't properly see.

"Lord Trevelyan, this is all a terrible misunderstanding. We were doing a thorough investigation of the incident that's all. A bad time for this sort of thing you know." She recognizes Knight-Captain Devon's voice and wants to spit. The words Lord Trevelyan bounce around in her skull, in her chest.

"Father?" She mumbles like a child. The armored hands leave her and she nearly falls. Strong hands, without metal, touch her shoulders with hesitant gentleness. Trevelyan sags against the person.

"It's me. It's Lancel," her eldest brother comforts on soft tones that are rough with anger. Trevelyan finds herself weeping loudly, clutching him so that she doesn't fall into a boneless heap. "I told you to leave," he growls at someone Trevelyan can't see.

"I'm sorry. I was just-- I wanted to make sure-- I'll leave you two alone." The voice is the one she heard before arguing about food. It's a voice she knows. It's Wallis.

The realization makes her cry all the harder.

-

Lancel demands that Knight-Captain Devon apologize. He demands that Knight-Commander Jerome apologize. To her surprise they do it. She forgets what it means to a have a name that carries power, to be someone that people were careful not to offend. The looks the Templars give her brother make her certain they don't mean anything they say. The looks he gives them makes her worried he plans to punch them and get himself kicked out.

Lancel stays with her until he has seen her eat twice and been reassured that she is fine more times than she can count. It's strange because it's Lancel, older now with a beard and thick body. He was twenty the last time she saw him and still a little gangly from youth. Now he's a man, married and with a baby and a future. He rests his hand on her shoulder tensely and hardly looks at her, but that's how he's always been. It's comforting and it's startlingly easy to traverse the years between them.

When he leaves it's with the same quick kiss he gave her ten years ago and a mumble request to stay out of trouble. Trevelyan sits on her bed and cries a little more. She feels over stimulated after the isolation. She wants to see Kenna but curfew has fallen and she's too scared to risk another infraction so closely to this disaster. It can wait until breakfast, she tells herself.

She falls asleep and walks uneasily to the sound of knocking at her door. It's an unfamiliar sound since the doors don't lock and everyone knows it. No one gets privacy in the Circle. Besides the fact that it's the middle of the night and no one is allowed out. She hesitates, hears the insistent knocking again, and makes her quietly to the door.

"Hello?" She asks, fearing a trap. She'll open the door and it will be a Templar there ready to take her away. She trembles and holds on to the doorknob.

"It's Wallis. Please, can I come in? I know it's late..." At first she thinks he has let himself in. Then she realizes that opened the door without realizing. She takes a step back and he hurries through, closing the door carefully behind him. He's in his armor but not his helmet. The sight of him is terror and affection and it makes her want to cry all over again. "Maker, Trevelyan," he breathes, looking at her like a man dying of thirst in a desert would look at water. "I thought you were going to die."  
  
"I had to do what I did," she argues. He shakes his head, smiling that easy beautiful smile that she misses.

"I know. I didn't come to argue. I came, well, to," and he stops talking and leans forward. His lips brush against hers so lightly she swears that this is another Fade imagining. She almost pulls away, convinced that she's still in her cell and that this is nothing more than a demon playing with her slipping mind. "To do that." He says when he pulls himself away. He plays with a fringe of hair that's a bit too long.

"Why?" She asks dumbly.

"I shouldn't have been a fool for so long. I should've kissed you when you asked that time. I don't-- I don't want to lose you." He plays with his hair a bit more before settling. "I-- I mean... I think--I love you." He shrugs as if he hasn't just stacked the deck against her. As if mages were allowed something like that. As if this wasn't the absolute worst thing that could ever happen.

Whatever part of her thinks those things isn't in charge of her hands or her mouth. Because she's kissing him again, forcefully and deep and desperate. Eventually they make their way to the bed and when it's finished they lay for a tender moment. Wallis traces words onto her lower back and asks her to guess them. Most of them are things like love and happy and wonderful. It makes her giggle even though her stomach is in knots. When he's putting his armor back on to leave she stops him.

"My brother said he knew to come get me because a Templar sent him a letter." Wallis squirms under her implied question more than he had at any point in their night. She wonders at how sleeping with a mage is a rule he's willing to break, but writing a letter against his commander makes him uncomfortable.  
  
"I guess... someone got tired of watching you suffer."

-

He sneaks to her room twice more during his night shifts. It's wonderful but horrible. Every moment tinged with a fear she's never known while sleeping with Pate. She can't tell if it makes it better, or if there's something wrong with her for thinking that way. Wallis never mentions anything about it so she doesn't bring it up. It's enough for her to feel grateful to have it.

He doesn't come the third night even though he said he had night shift for five days. Trevelyan doesn't worry about it. She sleeps through the nights and spends her days with Kenna and Pate and Lyla. She laughs and she studies. She doesn't look for Wallis because she knows she won't see him during the day. She doesn't even know what she would do if she did see him. Even a prolonged look could be the end of them.

It turns out to be nothing so romantic as that.

He comes to her a week after the last time, shaking and sweating. "They've cut my lyrium ration," he explains through chattering teeth. Trevelyan doesn't understand. "Someone reported I wasn't where I was supposed to be. They... they want me to tell them where I was." Fear grips her and she feels bile rising at the back of her throat. Why are you here now, she wants to scream.

"What did you say?" She surprises herself with how calm she sounds.   

"Nothing," he insists. "And I won't. I would never. I know what they'll do to you." His eyes, red ringed and glassy, go distant. "What they'll make me do to you." Trevelyan shudders at the sound of his voice, so cold and faraway and hopeless. She holds him for a moment and bites her lip. There's nothing she can say. There's nothing they can do. Tears build in her eyes. It's only been three days of a relationship. They don't deserve to be punished like this.

-

Wallis never talks.

He gets transferred to Kirkwall to lend a hand with the reconstruction.

Trevelyan reflects that it hasn't been a very good year.

 

**9:40**

 

The Circles gets disbanded. The word comes down from Orlais on a chilled, rainy day. It feels like all the air goes out of the room the moment Knight-Commander Jerome announces it. Trevelyan looks around at the gathered faces. Somehow she had gotten separated from her friends. She is standing among strangers. Next to her an old woman starts to cry.

"The world hates mages," she mutters as she sobs. Trevelyan looks away, uncomfortable and uncertain. Can she just go home then? The thought thrills for a moment fore falling dead. What about Kenna and Pate and Lyla? What even about Ollie and Nichols? What about everyone she's ever known? First-Enchanter Lydia who promised she was well on her way to becoming an Enchanter. Trevelyan feels sick and confused.

She isn't the only one.

Confusion breaks out, followed closely by shouting, and unavoidably it turns violent. She presses through the mob until she finds Kenna. She grabs her friend's arm, tugs her in an attempt at freeing her from the throng, and getting them somewhere they can breathe. Kenna screams and Trevelyan looks up in time to see Lyla.

With blood on her hand.

Lyla's magic feels sick and twisted and Trevelyan has to swallow down vomit at the horror of it all. She manages to get Kenna running and they don't stop until the sounds of screams and fire and dying are floors above them and a little more hollow. But the sound of chaos spreads Trevelyan realizes that there is no safe place within the Circle. Maybe within the world.

"We have to get out of here," she tells Kenna. The elf is shivering and pale. They loop down another level, Templars ignoring them as they rush to defend against the uprising of abominations. When they reach the bottom level the gates are unlatched and thrown open. The Templars who had been guarding them already abandoned their posts. They got to step out but Kenna hesitates, staring up at the dark sky with as much fear as Lyla's turn caused. Trevelyan reaches out to pull her forward.

"What about Pate?"

"I don't know," is all Trevelyan can muster. The pair runs out into the fresh, wet air.

-

They wander for days. Trevelyan thinks she's taking them in the direction of her family but she isn't sure. She's never been on foot like this before and it's been too long since she used any real directional sense. Kenna rocks from being quiet and angry to wailing and sad. Trevelyan catches her trying to go back to the Circle once. She reminds her that there's nothing there for them, nothing left except to move forward.

After what Trevelyan thinks is a week they stumble across more mages from the Circle who managed to escape with some of the Tranquil as well. There's even a Templar with them but he looks worse for wear. Trevelyan thinks of Wallis when his lyrium rations were reduced. She feels as poorly for this Templar as for any of them. Pate is among the escaped mages and seeing him does Kenna a deal of good. Trevelyan is more happy than she can say.

They split a tent since Kenna and Trevelyan don't have one and Pate is eager to keep them within his sights. "I thought you'd been killed in the fighting," he tells them as they drink a bitter tasting, stomaching warming liquid that he produces from his bag. "I heard that Nichols and Samuel managed to make it to the phylactery room. There haven't been any Templars coming after us so here's hoping they made a good effort." He tips the bottle back and winces. Kenna takes it from him solemnly when he offers. 

"We saw some Templars on the roads but we avoided them," Trevelyan says. She watches Kenna's tired movements and Pate's drunken ones. They're all dirty and full of nerves. She wants to take them all to her home but she isn't sure. Isn't sure what Mother and Father would say, isn't sure that it's a better choice than where they're already heading. 

They fall asleep in a pile, curled together like kittens. Trevelyan wakes drowsily to the feeling of Pate's hands caressing her. She turns to face him and finds he and Kenna kissing wildly. As if the world is ending and she thinks: maybe it is.

It takes a little practice, a little overcoming the awkwardness, but Kenna and Pate are her closest friends. They make it work.

 

**9:41**

 

"Good luck at the Conclave," Pate says with a smile but Trevelyan can read the utter despair in his eyes. They've been inseparable since the Circles fell, but Pate's more useful to the mage community out there as a healer than he is stumbling through politics with them. Trevelyan doesn't even feel she's a good choice but she supposes her family name still means something to some people. 

Kenna goes with her because Pate thinks it's safer than traveling with him.

  
"We'll meet up again as soon as it's over," Trevelyan promises. The three linger in a hug.

"I'll be here. Languishing away in the Free Marches while you two live it up abroad." The joke sets them all a little more at least. Everything will be fine. The Conclave will end the war, a real peace will be reached, and before they know it they'll all be reunited.

  
Knight-Captain Devon's words echo pale and nearly forgotten in her mind: it could be much worse.

She smiles and takes Kenna's hand as they walk away with the other mages headed to the Conclave.

 


End file.
